Ref:

Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage- Charles Mosley, ed., 107th edition, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003- vol. I, p. 1331

2I. JOHN (WILLIAM 1)

Sir John obtained a charter of the barony of Crichton from King Robert III and started building Crichton Castle as a tower house which was enlarged by his son William.

Crichton Castle

Issue-

Ref:

Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage- Charles Mosley, ed., 107th edition, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003- vol. I, p. 1331
"The Scottish Nation"- William Anderson, A. Fullarton & Co., Edinburgh, 1880

3I. WILLIAM (JOHN 2)

d. 1454

At the death of King James I, William was the Sheriff of Edinburgh, Keeper of Edinburgh Castle and Master of the King's Household. Sir William was Lord High Chancellor of Scotland during the minority of James II. In 1423 he went to Durham to escourt James I home after his long captivity. At the coronation in 1424 he was knighted and appointed Chamberlain to the King. On 8 May 1426 he was one of the commissioners appointed to negociate a treaty with Eric, King of Norway and after his return home he was appointed one of the King's Privy Council and master of the household. He was in possession of Edinburgh castle upon the accession of James II and was guardian to the young King much to the displeasure of the Queen. She visited Edinburgh and won the good will of William and was able to easily visit the Prince. After all suspicion had gone she said that she had made a vow to go on a pilgrimage to the White Kirk of Brechin for her son's health. She then hid the young King in a chest with the linen and was taken to Stirling and placed in the hands of William's rival Sir Alexander Livingstone of Callendar. Sir Alex immediately laid siege to Edinburgh castle and William and Alex agreed to a custody of the King and management of the government. Crichton however took the King while he was in the Royal park at Stirling and took him back to Edinburgh, but an agreement was soon reached between Alex and William. The two of them saw the Earl of Douglas as too powerful a person and so they decided to get rid of him. Douglas was invited to attend a Parliament at Edinburgh in 1440 and after luring he and his brother into the castle they were executed at the famous "Black Dinner". William was governor of the castle and the young King James was in residence. The earl of Douglas and his brother were invited to be the guests of honour at the royal banquet. After dinner, the Douglases were dragged from the young King's presence and executed on Castle Hill. The new Earl of Douglas was in favor with the King and therefore William was proclaimed a rebel, his estates confiscated and Douglas laid siege to the castle and after nine weeks William made a treaty with Livingstone and Douglas. In 1445 William was made Lord Crichton and in 1448 he was ambassador to France to negociate a marriage between the King and Mary, daughter of Arnold, Duke of Gueldres and he accompanied her back to Scotland. Douglas later tried to assassinate William who continued in the King's favor until his death in 1454. In 1452 when he was keeper of Stirling Castle the eighth Earl of Douglas was killed in Crichton Castle by James II.

William founded the collegiate church of Crichton, dedicated to St. Mary and St. Kentigern, which held its first service on 26 Dec. 1449. Provisions were made for a provost, eight prebendaries, two boys or clerks and a sacrist. Collegiate churches housed a group of priests whose role was to pray for the souls of the Lord of the manor and his family in the hopes that this would ease their passage to heaven.

Crichton Collegiate Church

Issue-

Ref:

The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed.- G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, ed., Alan Sutton Pub., 2000- Vol. VII, p. 121
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage- Charles Mosley, ed., 107th edition, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003- vol. II, p. 2565
A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire- Sir J. Bernard Burke, Harrison, London, 1866- p. 145
"The Scottish Nation"- William Anderson, A. Fullarton & Co., Edinburgh, 1880